| Summary: | 碩士 === 國立中興大學 === 農業經濟學系 === 87 === As agricultural trade has increasingly become an important issue, more attention has been put on the relationships among agriculture, trade, and the environment. The linkages between agricultural trade and the environment are especially important for a country like Taiwan, which has very limited natural resources but depends largely on international trade.
This study adopted cases of hog industry and organic agriculture for analyzing the relations of trade and environment. The results of this study were as follows.
1. The proportion of hog exportation was from 23.6﹪in 1986 increased to 47.4﹪in 1995. The success of extending foreign markets for hog kept the domestic price stable and encouraged the hog farms increase their raising scale. As the production scale per hog farm expand, the quantity of waste increases fast, but many hog farms do not care about pollution control as such the situation is getting worse; this even degrades the water quality of public water sources. At present, Taiwan is still under the control of hoof and mouth disease. On the other hand, domestic hog market is under the pressure of trade liberalization. All these signal that it is necessary for us to reduce the hog production quantity to accommodate the entrance into WTO. Reduction in hog production will reduce dumping sewage into rivers flowing past their farms and improve our river environment.
2. As there are growing concerns of environmental protection in Taiwan, environmental regulatory on hog industry will be strictly imposed. If one country adopts strict environmental policy, then under the trade liberalization, its social welfare will be increased through the reallocation of resources, the decrease of externalities, and the improvement of environmental quality. Some studies have found that strictly environmental regulatory have led to significant reduce trade competition. The costs of hog production in Taiwan are already higher than some developed countries, so the cost of environmental compliance will raise highly the private cost of hog production and reduce the comparative advantage of hog industry.
3. Taiwan will take part in WTO in the near future, accordingly the customs tariff needs to be lowered, and in the mean time, the domestic market will be forced to open wider. It is thus necessary for us to reduce the quantity of agricultural production to accommodate the impact after entering into WTO. Organic agriculture advocates farming without the use of chemical fertilizers and pesticides, hence it is conducive to environment. Therefore, after agricultural trade liberalized, the implementation of organic agriculture is helpful for our agricultural sustainability.
4. The people in Taiwan have now paid more attention to the environmental quality as the national income has been increasing each year. Although organic products usually cost more than non-organic products, the demand for organic products has been steadily increasing, as we are more conscious about our health. Under such circumstances, the exportation of organic products will be more competitive, and those organic products with certification will enjoy comparative advantage.
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